"Seagate this morning announced plans to acquire LaCie, a Paris-based producer of consumer data storage devices, for at least $186 million. Seagate said it has agreed to buy a 64.5% stake in LaCie held by Philippe Spruch, the company's chairman and CEO. On completion of that transaction, Seagate intends to made an all-cash tender offer for the rest of LaCie's shares."

What you're saying seems to imply that people definitely had it more in the old days ...but, really, that would be mythologising of the past.

Tulip mania is one nice example. Or the much greater prevalence of various conmen.

Generally, the world has a long history of largely useless luxury goods (typically positional or maybe even veblen goods). And also, many of the nowadays often cherished physical artifacts of local folklores - for example, some of the more elaborate folk costumes - were ultimately, in the past, quite frivolous displays of status (within social strata) and/or how much time or ~wealth one wasted on making or acquiring them.

While it might sometimes look like we were more frugal in the past ...I think it's mostly just because we were simply forced to, less opportunities to be wasteful.

Yeah but you see laCie is an established company with an actually profit bearing product line so obviously they're not, uhm, worth that much. That, or Seagate management is actually competent and level-headed.

Who will create professional CRT's where leds, oleds and LCD's does not cut it? I know it is a small market but the sharpness of the LaCie blue series combined with the perfect dark and wild contrast worthy of 1300x printing. My screen is old, it only accepts 2056x*@200hz and i built it into the wallso it uses no space. This segment has never been for the less fortunate, i know. But i really was looking forward to the 5072x screens they were working on.

Well for me, Seagate is a hard drive brand that produces hard drive that makes scratching sound and breaks, while Lacie produce reliable external hard drive. So based on my experience, I will assume that there is a high change of a loss. Unless they keep Lacie as a separate business units, but that seems unlikely.

We have just three HDD manufacturers for some time now - Seagate, WD, and Toshiba (the last one with more limited line of products; and probably at least less frequently used by LaCie, considering the sizes of their many drives).

It would be a bit surprising (but sure, possible) if LaCie doesn't source at least some HDDs from Seagate already. Plus, them being bought by Seagate could stem from some earlier relationship.
Did LaCie ever make actual drives, anyway?

And as far as personal anecdotes go - for me, Seagate is the manufacturer with by far the best track record...

Well for me, Seagate is a hard drive brand that produces hard drive that makes scratching sound and breaks, while Lacie produce reliable external hard drive.

Lacie never made hard drives - they made enclosures, containing hard drives manufactured by others.

So if you're not happy with this, simply find out what brand of drives Lacie currently sell, and buy external drives containing that brand (or just get a decent enclosure that lets you plug in a standard SATA driver).

Duh... so? Of course it won't "disappear from the face of the earth" (the same way phonograph records or scythes are still around; the latter underrated BTW - but then, we wouldn't be ourselves if didn't waste manufacturing resources and fuel so that every lawn can have its mechanised mower). And which I didn't say.

But it's irrelevant as far as future products go, it's being phased out - nothing more, nothing less, at most relegated to "let's see how much money we can squeeze out of those locked into this tech in ~legacy scenarios" (like Apple leaving FW only on "pro" machines) ...and even that for a relatively short time (and quite soon: relegated to where 5.25" or 8" floppies and getting data out of them are)